John, Earl of St.Vincent, the right hon.

Charles Phillip Yorke, and the right hon.

Robert Saunders, Viscount Melville, who, as first Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, successively honoured the Investigator's voyage with their patronage, this account of it is respectfully dedicated, by Their Lordships most obliged, and most obedient humble servant Matthew Flinders 35.

PAGE FROM MANUSCRIPT OF FLINDERS' ABRIDGED NARRATIVE (UNPUBLISHED).
(Melbourne Public Library.) from the general's conduct, that he has sought to impose upon him, and this for the purpose, perhaps for the pleasure, of prolonging to the utmost my unjust detention.
But if apprehensions for the safety of this land are not the cause of the order of the French government remaining unexecuted, what reason can there be, sufficiently strong to have induced the captain-general to incur the risk of misobedience, first to the passport, and afterwards to the order for my liberation.

This I shall endeavour to explain in the following and last chapter of this discussion; promising, however, that what I shall have to offer upon this part of the subject, can only be what a consideration of the captain-general's conduct has furnished me, as being the most probable.